Jan Schuitema, wife of Dr. Jerry Umanos, pauses as she talks about her husband's work in Afghanistan during an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Thursday, April 24, 2014, in Chicago. Umanos, an American pediatrician who was killed when an Afghan security guard opened fire Thursday at a Kabul hospital, was dedicated to helping poor children, volunteering in Afghanistan to train young doctors and periodically returning to Chicago to work in a Christian clinic on the city's southwest side. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

This undated photo provided by the Lawndale Christian Health Center in Chicago, shows Dr. Jerry Umanos, one of three physicians killed when an Afghan security guard opened fire on a group of foreign doctors at a hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan on Thursday morning, April 24, 2014. (AP Photo/Courtesy of the Lawndale Christian Health Center, Bernardo Barrios)

KABUL, Afghanistan — Three Americans were killed at a private hospital in Kabul on Thursday morning when an Afghan police officer turned his gun on them, officials said, in the latest in a string of attacks against Western civilians here.

After a campaign of Taliban violence aimed at foreigners raised apprehensions before the presidential election this month, the latest attack seemed to have nothing to do with the insurgency.

Rather, officials said the gunman appeared to be a police officer who reacted in the moment when he saw a small group of U.S. visitors outside his guard post, raising fears of a new wave of so-called green-on-blue shootings spurred by deepening Afghan resentment.

The shooting took place at Cure International Hospital, which specializes in the treatment of disabled children and women’s health issues. Afghan police officials said that one of the doctors there was hosting visitors from the U.S. who, after taking pictures together in front of the hospital, were headed inside when they were attacked.

Among the dead was a pediatrician from Chicago, Dr. Jerry Umanos, who had volunteered at the Cure hospital for almost nine years, treating children and helping train Afghan doctors. There were few details about the other victims on Thursday night.

Afghan officials identified the gunman, who was wounded, as a two-year veteran of the Kabul police force named Ainuddin, who had only recently been assigned to guard the hospital. Witnesses and officials said he fired on the Americans as they approached his security post at the building’s entrance, killing three and wounding a female doctor before entering the interior courtyard and seeking new targets.

There were conflicting reports about whether other officers then shot him, or whether he turned his gun on himself. He was admitted at the Cure hospital as a patient.

Spokesmen for the Taliban, usually quick to claim responsibility for attacks on Westerners, did not assert any involvement this time. Instead, the details seemed to speak to a growing alienation between Afghans and Americans here, as uncertainty about the relationship between their countries has deepened as troops prepare to withdraw this year.

“The foreigners have been here too long,” said a man outside the hospital who gave his name as Fawad and said a female relative was in the Cure hospital undergoing surgery. “People are tired of them.”

Less than three weeks ago, an award-winning photographer for the Associated Press, Anja Niedringhaus, a German citizen, was killed by a police officer at a checkpoint in eastern Afghanistan. Her colleague Kathy Gannon, a Canadian reporter who had covered Afghanistan and Pakistan for AP for decades, was also wounded in the attack.

Friends and colleagues of Umanos said that he was keenly aware of the risks but was drawn to working with Afghans and helping to teach a new generation of doctors here.

“He was a very good teacher and clinician,” Robert Werner, who for a time lived in the same house as Umanos in Afghanistan, said Thursday. “And he also had a great sense of humor, so culturally, he just did well. The doctors loved working with him.”

Werner, a health care administrator who now works in Memphis, Tenn., said he had heard from many of Umanos’ Afghan colleagues since his death, including one who called him “our best friend.”

Since Umanos earned his medical degree in 1982, he had cultivated a reputation as a compassionate physician in Chicago, where he practiced at the Lawndale Christian Health Center for more than 25 years.

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